No I run an online marketing company, I have contracts set up with small business and increase there google ranking and conversion rates. I charge several hundred a month and spend a couple of hours on ranking and im done.

I also run a network of websites that generate revenue through CPA and CPM advertising. These are pretty much set and forget. Once they are built overtime the income increases.

(Original post by HighestKungFu)
Because you speak as if there are no barriers for social mobility, and as if intelligence and hard-work are the only prerequisites for wealth.

Well as Ive already stated I have a terribly poor background and I'm already doing well at only the age of 18. And not just intelligence and hard-work, I also said self motivation and ambition which are the 2 most important characteristics. If you know you can do something you can.

Anything is possible and the world is filled with an infinite amount of oppurtunities.

(Original post by Archaos)
Far too many people here are confusing 'ambition' with 'greed'. Many rich people worked bloody hard to get where they are, and probably get a bit pissed off when people advocate that their hard earned cash is stripped of them. Before you start saying "what about people born into privilege?" Think of it this way. You've just had a child, and you worked your arse off to get a good job with a nice salary, and you've just managed to buy a nice house. You'd want your kid to have the best upbringing possible, wouldn't you? Oh, but the child hasn't done anything to deserve his privilege, you say. What do you propose, give birth to the kid, and throw him out into the woods and say "you're on your own now son, you have to WORK for your upbringing!" Plus, let's not delve into any *******s about employment being 'exploitation'. Companies provide jobs and generate wealth. Let's not pretend communism/socialism is the answer to achieving some kind of utopia.

99.9% of you are in the top 10%. You all have TVs, fancy mobile phones, nice houses with heat, electricity and plenty of food, access to some of the best education facilities in the world, designer clothes and computers. Don't start pretending you're part of an oppressed underclass living in a dystopian nightmare. If you hate the system so much, are you willing to give up all your luxuries and hard-earned money from your jobs to give to someone worse off than you? I highly doubt it.

That's exactly precisely why it's the capitalist system that people oppose, and not those who comprise it.

(Original post by Steevee)
Because of the exsclusivity of the job. What it requires. Where stacking shelves requires no training, being a National distributor will require an intricate knowledge of the business, finance, logistics and so on. If that were payed the same, what would be the incentive to work hard to get there, instead of staying as a shelf stacker?

To your question, I would simply offer "less manual work."

Hmm, but I wouldn't say that many managers have had more or less oppurtunities than shelf stackers. They've just made the best of them. Take my Dad for instance, left school with 8 GCSE's, became something akin to a regional manager in a large Bank. Did he have more oppurtunities? No he did not, he was from a normal working class family in Oswerstry. He worked through the ranks, he worked hard and went to ngiht school and ended up on a pay package equivilent to near enough £100k a year. And there are a million stories like that.

I doubt very much there are 10,000 stories like that, which is why what your father managed to achieve is so commendable.

I agree, there are bad rich kids. But there is no excuse for being a chav. None at all, and to excuse it is to encourage it. Rich kids have it easier, I'm not denying that, but equally there is no excuse for chavdom.

Wouldn't attempt to excuse it, simply saying why it happens, and how it's a culture that can only pervade the poorer sections of society.

What's so bad about that? I'm not saying they shouldn;t try to better themselves. They certainly should. What I'm saying is they shouldn't resent the children of the successful because their parents weren't. It's pure jealousy. I know plenty of people at my 6th Form, all of which attended the Comp it's attached to before with the capability to achieve highly in their A-levels. Our education system isn't the best, but it provides what needs to be there.

You're right, it provides what needs to be there, but the amount of opportunities afforded to others means they're given such a flying start that it's hard to even being to catch up.

Of course you can work hard and not be succesful. But equally, you can't blame lack of success on lack of parental wealth. If person B is truly as intelligent as person A then for one there is no reason their grades shouldn't have been the same. A-levels really aren't that hard. Coming from someone who's not doing great. They just require application. But that aside, person B may start on a lower wage, but they have every oppurtunity to advance.

I'm not sure what you're advocating to be honest. You can't instantly have money. Just as the generation before you may be successful and leave you a legacy, so you may have to be the successful generation of your family. As I've said before. Not everyone can be rich. If you're not rich already, it requires hard work, wit, luck and so on. If you're already a bit wealthy, well then it's easier. But that's obvious.

I'm not attempting to say that in every instance someone isn't successful it's due to lack of parental wealth. I reject your idea that if Person B is as intelligent as person A their grades should be the same, utterly. In fact, there's talk of A-Levels being weighted to how good your school is, meaning that it's agreed that that is not the case even by politicians in some cases.

What I'm advocating is this "Wealth is kept within the wealthy, except for a few success stories, and this is the way things will always be within the system we currently have."

(Original post by Organ)
More like 7% of schools! Yet it accounts for 45% of Oxbridge students and a highly disproportionate number of medical, dental and vet students. It's one of the most shameful aspects of the United Kingdom. It's tragic that, more often than not, people's destination in life is a pre-determined, and not-self determined, path. Interestingly, the university league table and the %of state pupils, is largely in correlation.

I had thought it was 7%, but thought it might be 17%, so settled on 20%

Agree 100% with what you're saying, but at the same time, I can't agree that it's the universities' fault, they take the students best equipped to succeed, and more often than not, that's measured by who has the best grades, and that happens to be people who went to private school most of the time.

(Original post by HighestKungFu)
Because you speak as if there are no barriers for social mobility, and as if intelligence and hard-work are the only prerequisites for wealth accumulation.

Do you think chief executives hand over their positions to just anybody? Do you not know that in the U.S. the top 1% dominate business and politics and like to keep it that way (i.e. it's exclusive and not open to all). Your naivety is why you are being negged.

I was born into a normal family, and last year my earnings were in the top 1% of the country with ease. And that is just what I withdrew from my business. I went to a crap school as well. So I guess as long as you have the genetics and work ethic you can make it.

(Original post by Mann18)
I had thought it was 7%, but thought it might be 17%, so settled on 20%

Agree 100% with what you're saying, but at the same time, I can't agree that it's the universities' fault, they take the students best equipped to succeed, and more often than not, that's measured by who has the best grades, and that happens to be people who went to private school most of the time.

The education system requires a complete overhaul.

I'm not blaming the universities - it's the lazy thing to do. Hence the politicans boring oxbridge and medical school bashing. Oxbridge particularly has made pretty good attempts to widen access, as have a number of medical schools. The problem is right at the heart of the obvious class system in the UK. I don't think it's simply the education system that is rotten - I think a section of British society is actually quite disconnected from the UK that myself and most people on this forum know - and this is manifested in low educational attainment.

I doubt very much there are 10,000 stories like that, which is why what your father managed to achieve is so commendable.

So what would be the incentive to go beyond the most simple form of store managemnt, or Public relations or something?

And I'd disagree. I know at least 3 or 4 people with a story like that. Just in mine and my parents social circles. But I'd say the stories are few because few people have the drive and right skills to succeed.

Wouldn't attempt to excuse it, simply saying why it happens, and how it's a culture that can only pervade the poorer sections of society.

(Original post by Mann18)
You're right, it provides what needs to be there, but the amount of opportunities afforded to others means they're given such a flying start that it's hard to even being to catch up.

But that's the world we live in, if you pay more you get a better service. Would you like to see all brands done away with and simpley have one model of every product? They tried that in the USSR, didn't turn out so well. And anyway, I don't see the problem with Public schools.

(Original post by Mann18)
I'm not attempting to say that in every instance someone isn't successful it's due to lack of parental wealth. I reject your idea that if Person B is as intelligent as person A their grades should be the same, utterly. In fact, there's talk of A-Levels being weighted to how good your school is, meaning that it's agreed that that is not the case even by politicians in some cases.

What I'm advocating is this "Wealth is kept within the wealthy, except for a few success stories, and this is the way things will always be within the system we currently have."

And you'd have what? Wealth equally spread? No thank you, why should some one stake a claim to money I have earned through hard work? Is a 50% tax rate not enough? When will you be happy? When you strip wealthy families down their bare boards? Have them hand over their inherited wealth and live in council flats? Tell them that it's just not fair that they aren't giving their money away?

(Original post by Elipsis)
I was born into a normal family, and last year my earnings were in the top 1% of the country with ease. And that is just what I withdrew from my business. I went to a crap school as well. So I guess as long as you have the genetics and work ethic you can make it.

(Original post by Elipsis)
I was born into a normal family, and last year my earnings were in the top 1% of the country with ease. And that is just what I withdrew from my business. I went to a crap school as well. So I guess as long as you have the genetics and work ethic you can make it.

edit, top 1% of income is only anyone over 100k so its possible
actual wealth is very different though

(Original post by Elipsis)
I was born into a normal family, and last year my earnings were in the top 1% of the country with ease. And that is just what I withdrew from my business. I went to a crap school as well. So I guess as long as you have the genetics and work ethic you can make it.

But do the exceptions prove the rule? For every one story like yours there are hundreds if not thousands that are far different.

It can be done. But it takes a degree of luck and timing as well as intelligence and hard-work.

Here's a question for most of you in this thread:
-Why does it matter?

Basic economics tells us that profit is the reward to enterprise. People like Bill Gates generate income and improve living standards for everyone else as a by-product of this capatilistic motive.

If the richest 10% didn't own 85% of the wealth, then everyone would be a lot poorer.

PS. Some major criticisms of this data would be, is it PPP? (i.e. a house in Nigeria may be worth substantially less than one in the UK but is he may still be getting a house of the same size and quality). As well as this, wealth =/= income.

(Original post by f00ddude)
im calling bull****!
the top 1%? so what position are you on Britains rich list?

top 1% wouldnt be looking for this 2 years ago

Top 1% of pay in the UK isn't hard to achieve. A place on the rich list is like top 0.0006% of the population (400 people out of 60+ million). It will take a few more years of earning like this to get on there.

(Original post by HighestKungFu)
But do the exceptions prove the rule? For every one story like yours there are hundreds if not thousands that are far different.

It can be done. But it takes a degree of luck and timing as well as intelligence and hard-work.

There is a luck element. However, I have been friends with some exceptional people since early childhood, and although we all went our separate ways we are all top earners. One works in a top IB, another for a top search engine, and others are studying for PhDs. All of this from a school with 20-30% pass rates at GCSE. The other 90% of students at my school were dicks, and that's why they pack my groceries and clean my car, or if they're very lucky get to push some paper in a local government building from my taxes.

(Original post by Elipsis)
Top 1% of pay in the UK isn't hard to achieve. A place on the rich list is like top 0.0006% of the population (400 people out of 60+ million). It will take a few more years of earning like this to get on there.

yh dw, i edited
but there is a kinda rich list for a vast majority of the top 1% in wealth, its not published, but is on the governments website for public trading companies although private companies are largely excluded

(Original post by Elipsis)
There is a luck element. However, I have been friends with some exceptional people since early childhood, and although we all went our separate ways we are all top earners. One works in a top IB, another for a top search engine, and others are studying for PhDs. All of this from a school with 20-30% pass rates at GCSE. The other 90% of students at my school were dicks, and that's why they pack my groceries and clean my car, or if they're very lucky get to push some paper in a local government building from my taxes.

(Original post by f00ddude)
yh dw, i edited
but there is a kinda rich list for a vast majority of the top 1% in wealth, its not published, but is on the governments website for public trading companies although private companies are largely excluded

I run a limited private company. Suffice it to say, when I am rich enough I won't be on the rich list because i'll be in Zurich. To be fair though, the last quarter has been very bad for me and i'm having to rebuild because my business partner lost 200k on a bad deal.

I sat in the same classes as them, and I have no time for them because all they did was disrupt and get in the way of my learning. They were told if they continued to not listen and not work they'd end up working at Tescos. Well, the teachers were wrong, they work at Asda.